1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to computer software and, more specifically, to software agents and systems for matching individuals with specified skill sets with appropriate tasks.
2. Description of Related Art
Identifying personal to work on projects across a geographically diverse organization and collection of companies is difficult. Currently most organizations use a relatively manual process, supported by communications between supervisors and project leaders, for assigning individuals to projects and tasks. Skills and availability are agreed upon using this time consuming interaction. Availability may be tracked via calendaring software like Microsoft® Office Outlook®. (Microsoft® Office Outlook® is a product and registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.). A separate skills database may also be kept using a resource management tool like SAP. Tools, such as, for example, Evolve, are available that look at an individual's calendar against the individual's set of skills. However, the interests of the individual are not incorporated. Therefore someone who is interested in a particular topic may be overlooked based upon other attributes. Furthermore this process is time consuming and error prone and also may result in assigning an individual work that the person is not interested in. Uninteresting work can result in quicker worker fatigue and poor performance as well as lead to low workplace moral.
To alleviate the time consuming task of appropriately assigning tasks to individuals in an environment containing a large number of individuals who are perhaps geographically disperse as well as improve the match between assignments and individuals, it would be desirable to have an automated system that provides software agents on behalf of the individuals and employers to aid in matching individuals to projects. Such a system may offer the benefits of reducing the time and effort associated with matching an individual with an assignment. Such a system may also provide a mechanism that more appropriately matches individuals with projects they are suited for and interested in.